Flock to Vintage Wallpaper
Modern walls are donning vintage designs as new Brooklyn bars and cozy corner apartments strive for a signature look. Manhattan interior designer Danielle Colding told House Beautiful in a recent article, “everything that’s old is new again,” and “there are no rules anymore.” These textural graphic color-bombs are a secret weapon in both residential and commercial settings.
Wallpaper can be skillfully applied to cabinet doors, shelves and shelf backings. They can also adorn the inside of a flea market frame or the top of a tiny café table (under glass, of course). But these papers are also finding their way to upscale Brooklyn hide-aways and exclusive restaurants behind the bar or wrapping the water closet.
Where did these bold and beautiful papers come from?
Wallpaper has been around since the 16th century. By the 1920s, wallpaper retailers began popping up in America featuring French and Italian imports, and soon began producing word-class papers themselves. Katzenback and Warren in New York City, York Wall Paper Company in York, Pennsylvania, and M.H. Birge & Sons Company in Buffalo, New York were some of the most notable manufacturers.
These papers were not just paisley and damask. Charles Burchfield, hailed as one of the most influential American artists of the twentieth century, worked as a designer for M.H. Birge & Sons from 1921 to 1929. Then a newly formed Museum of Modern Art organized an exhibition of his paintings and drawings in 1930 (he left the wallpaper company after that). Katzenbach & Warren commissioned artists like Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse, Matta and Joan Miró to design large scale wallpaper murals.
Of course, not all wallpaper is so high brow. There are plenty of kitchy wallpapers out there (ok, ugly ones, too). The 1950s – 1970s certainly provided a diverse catalog of design styles to choose from.
In 1995, the Cooper Hewitt organized the exhibition Kitsch to Corbusier: Wallpapers From the 1950’s that crowned the 1950s as the “golden age” of wallpaper. The exhibition proclaimed that as more mass-produced (lower-priced) papers entered the market, an explosion of design ensued.
Still, even if you are ready to splurge on a retro wall redo, vintage wallpapers can be hard to find. Give yourself plenty of time to find that perfect one, and make sure to have a budget to match.
